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StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm release date set on March 12, 2013

StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm is reportedly slated for March 12, 2013 release, according to Game Arena. It is an expansion of Wings of Liberty featuring a new campaign with it focus on Sarah Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades. Does anyone play StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty here?

Looking forward to this. I realy enjoyed the SC2 campaign. Only had one "frustrating" mission (the original and BW had many more :p), and all the missions were fun. But I'll still wait for a sale on this, since I don't play MP.

Steam: Gundato
PSN: Gundato
If you want me on either service, I suggest PMing me here first to let me know who you are.

Still yet to play the SP campaign on account of how slow it ran on my old PC, which was odd given how well other far more visually impressive games ran. Is it worth doing so, rather than just playing a proven single player campaign from a trad RTS like Age of Mythology or Battle for Middle Earth?

I thought the campaign in SC2 was very strong, a good example of how to do interesting things with a standard RTS game. My only criticism would be that there are so many "themed" missions that sometimes you just find yourself wanting a more traditional mission from time to time where you build up a little base and destroy a huge base.

Story was absolutely terrible and the missions usually revolved around you building masses of the newly introduced unit. Having said that, it was still a lot of fun an would definitely recommend it to any one that likes traditional RTS games.

I'm kind of on the fence about this. I loved SC2 and played multiplayer a fair amount. My hopelessness at 1v1 meant I normally team games with mates where the balance issues did become a real problem, particularly the extreme power of units with splash damage. That is something that doesn't seem to be resolved here. I can't see myself sinking enough time into it to even bother with 1v1 this time around and I'm not sure how interested my mates will be in going into again. I'm also convinced Blizzard doesn't know what expansion prices are, as they are charging as much as a full game for this, when it should be about half.

Story was absolutely terrible and the missions usually revolved around you building masses of the newly introduced unit. Having said that, it was still a lot of fun an would definitely recommend it to any one that likes traditional RTS games.

I'm kind of on the fence about this. I loved SC2 and played multiplayer a fair amount. My hopelessness at 1v1 meant I normally team games with mates where the balance issues did become a real problem, particularly the extreme power of units with splash damage. That is something that doesn't seem to be resolved here. I can't see myself sinking enough time into it to even bother with 1v1 this time around and I'm not sure how interested my mates will be in going into again. I'm also convinced Blizzard doesn't know what expansion prices are, as they are charging as much as a full game for this, when it should be about half.

They're calling it an expandalone. You can play this without having the original game. It's similar to the last two original Dawn of War expansions where you could play the campaign and the multiplayer, but in that case you could only use those races unless you entered in your cd keys for the previous games.

$40 seems the standard for expansion for big titles. Tho nowadays its all DLC. Dragon Age had Awakening. Hard to think of any other big titles with actual expansions of the old. Brood War was $30, when new PC games were $50 still.

Will Heart of the Swarm require ownership of Wings of Liberty?
For the regions that have a standard box business model such as North America and Europe, yes, Wings of Liberty will be required in order to play Heart of the Swarm. For other regions that have alternative access models, we’ll provide details at a later date.

Probably will be bundled together for $50-$60. They done that with WoW on expansion launches, selling the old ones for cheap (or free) bundled with the latest expansion.

It will be interesting to see how the servers handle Global play. No problems here to connect to EU for SC2 or D3. TW/KR is hit or miss. There is a big interest in playing on the Taiwan/Korean server and with no more cost barrier to try it, I am sure lots will. Wonder if casual korean players will give NA/EU a try (tho overall a step down in challenge, but more casual could maybe go for a league they can't get on their home server).

They must have bumped the price up in the UK, as it is £30 on Amazon at the moment. Checking direct from Blizzard, I can't find it being sold on their store by itself (sure it is there, but I'm on my phone.) The bundle price is marked as £44.99, reduced from £77.98. If you take the non-reduced price of Wings of Liberty (£32.99) off of the non-reduced price of the bundle, it works out as them putting an RRP on Heart of the Swarm of £44.99.

That is no way an expansion price. $40 (about £25) seems more reasonable though.

Thousands of years ago the Mayans plotted a calendar that spanned countless generations to come. A calendar which predicted that one day the world would end. Scholars of today claim that day is to be the 21st of December, 2012.

Recent studies and research have brought to light a startling new understanding of the Mayan calendar. It is not the end of the world that is upon us within months, but the end of Wings of Liberty.

Brought to you by the team behind the Rumble in the Bronze events of the past two years, and hosted by Gameheart, "The End of Liberty" is a charity fundraiser event raising money for the Child’s Play charity through a collection of exciting show matches, custom games, and general Starcraft 2 shenanigans. The aim of this event is to provide the community with some entertainment during the holiday season, and to promote the wonderful work that the Child’s Play charity does, especially around this time of year. Last year our event raised over $18,000, and with your help, we can top that this year.

Casting the event will be Evil Genusis' Geoff ‘iNcontrol’ Robinson and Australian Shawn ‘Seguer’ Murphy. The duo will be accompanied by a cohort of other well known Starcraft 2 players, including, but not limited to:

mTw.Dimaga
iSAxslav
Liquid'TLO

And, as always, there will be a selection of more… ‘casual’ players joining the pros for some fun and games!

The End of Liberty takes place on the 16th of December between 4PM and 10PM EST with a short pre-show beforehand.

So with the end of the world looming, and the end of Wings of Liberty just a handful of months away, why not spend some of the precious few hours left with your fellow gamers, and help out some children who could use some fun in their lives during this time of the year?

For information about Child’s Play you can visit their website or watch this video for some behind-the-scenes information.

You can find further information over the coming weeks up til the event at our website or twitter, and this thread will be updated as additional information is released.